Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives

While the book I read wasn't directly about social marketing, it is a common trade book that I have seen individuals reading in many of my internships. I was interested in Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives, at first, because it had an eye-catching cover. As I got to hear more about it though, and how Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler took a new approach in writing the book, I knew I had to read it. I enjoyed this book because it looked at our social networks as a whole: What sort of effects do they have on our lives? More importantly, what sort of effects to they have on our health?

The book goes through various studies showing that, essentially, our networking is vital to our health and well being. A healthy network of friends, who interact and share have benefits on our health comparable to quitting smoking. In other words, our friendships add years to our lives. On the flip side, less expansive networks can cause obesity. What I also liked about this book was that it looked into less explored, latent effects of of our social networks. For instance, obesity can be contagious. If one friend is obese, the chances that each of their friends increases greatly. Even more surprising, these risks extend to friends' friends, and even those friends' friends. Connected also does a good job of qualifying these relationships.

I think this book is popular for social media marketing specialists because it is, in many ways, reassuring. It promises that by keeping people connected and in the know, we are somehow doing them a favor. Moreover, Christakis and Fowler make the point emphatically and repeatedly that to not be connected isn't just social suicide, it's actually killing you. Any marketer must think, "Wow, I'm doing this for the people's health." Furthermore, marketers can use a lot of this information to figure out more effective means of communication. Instead of making people feel inadequate or like they need a product, word of mouth marketing, which essentially is the trickle down of information through friend groups, is going to make people more likely to purchase whatever product or idea is being sold. We see the effects of this attitude already today, as marketers pursue bloggers to influence taste patters, or send out models for guerilla marketing to influence trends. 

However, one huge criticism I have with this book is that, although the reader can extend conclusions drawn in the book to the digital space, the authors didn explore it more explicitly. The book not only could have benefitted from such data, but it also would have adressed what I believe to be a more relevant issue today. How do our social networks and our well being change when our relationships become increasingly mediated? If socialization can indeed save us, as the authors posit, does online socialization even count? Is a Facebook poke the same as eye contact?

I reccommend this book, as it is interesting beyond the social media marketing perspective. Connected provides an interesting take on our human interaction, and may give you a new way to think about even the slightest social interaction. 

 

Ceci Diaz